It feels like we’ve been going from celebration to celebration at the moment! We began with Christmas of course, which was somewhat different from a Christmas at home, but still fun. On Christmas Eve we were invited to a party at the children’s dentist- bizarre I know! They are seen by an Australian NGO and have lots of volunteers, so we spent a fun evening chatting, watching Khmer dancing and eating BBQ food with lots of nice people.
Christmas Day began with me slamming my finger in the bedroom door, but definitely went uphill from there! And fortunately the only traces that remain of this are some black marks on my nail, so I count that as a fairly good. I was lucky enough to have presents to open from Flo, from Mum and from a few friends from home- including a ‘stocking’ from Mum and lots of yummy western food from various people! Our breakfast wasn’t rice for a change; we’d managed to find some gluten free flour mix so we had gluten free banana pancakes which was a real treat. We went to church in the morning and that was fairly traditional, followed by a not-so-traditional curry for lunch. In Thai style we sat on cushions on the floor and shared lots of delicious food, including fried rice out of a pineapple and an incredibly spicy crab salad which no one could eat because it was so dangerous! Some kind people from church invited us to come to their house afterwards for games so we played Take Two (remember this from SU, Jess?!) and Jungle Run and it felt very homely, especially when they added tea and cakes. After another barbeque in the afternoon Flo and I both did skype home to our families- it’s amazing how we can do that! The house back home was totally manic, filled with grandparents, neighbours, friends and puppies, as well as the usual lot, and it was so nice to see everyone together and made me feel like I was able to join in a little bit despite being so far away.
On Boxing Day we were supposedly back to work, but the ever unreliable tuk-tuk was broken again so we ended up doing games and activities with the children at group home 2 rather than the normal work at the hospital and group home 2. It was nice to be relaxed though, it felt like a surprisingly normal Boxing Day- slobbing around, sorting out presents and eating leftover food! Howver, we didn’t have much time to hang around, as the next day we began our long and tortuous journey to Koh Chang (one of the Thai islands) to spend New Year with some of the other Thai/Cambodian Project volunteers. Eventually we got there and crashed in the dormitory to wait for the others to arrive the next day. The dorm was totally unlike anything you would see in Britain- it was a big, round wooden thatched hut on stilts with canvas walls with some beds and a hammock!
The time in Koh Chang was really nice and a great break from being in Cambodia. We spent plenty of time on the beach, swimming during the day and at parties in the evening, and went to see a beautiful waterfall nearer the centre of the island as well. We were able to swim in the plunge pool and it was spectacular, if rather colder than you might expect of somewhere like Thailand. While staying on Koh Chang 2 of the Thai volunteers invited me and Flo to come and visit their project in Phana (near Ubon), so for the second week of our holiday we did that.
It was very different from Koh Chang as it wasn’t a touristy area at all, but it was great to be able to see something slightly more authentic, and so nice of Hannah and Nikki to look after us for a week! We even met the mayor of the town (and deputy major, fire chief and everyone else who worked for the mayor it seemed!) who gave us each Thai names- Flo was ‘sticky rice’ and I was ‘jasmine rice’. Possibly not the nicknames you would particularly wish to have, but very kind of him all the same! While we were staying there people were so generous with inviting us along to things, and it felt like we’d met most of the town by the time we left! We did have to leave though, and embark on a monstrous journey back to Phnom Penh. It began on Monday evening, and ended on Wednesday morning, took 3 bus journeys and was 36 hours in total! By the end of it we were completely exhausted!
The next big event was my 18th birthday on Friday 13th (not unlucky for me!) and despite none of the parcels my Mum sent having arrived for the day it was a great day. Flo’s present was a CD Player for our room (it took me back to being 12 and getting one for the first time!) as well as some CDs and gluten free food she’d brought back from Thailand. The best part though was a card Flo had made and got all of the children to sign- I’m definitely going to be keeping it for a long time! We were supposed to be teaching in the morning, but the tuk-tuk was having yet another off day so we had a chilled out morning, before going to the office to work and skype my family in the afternoon. The evening was a celebration with a few friends from church and was suitably memorable! We began at Raffles Hotel Le Royal for cocktails in the Elephant Bar, which would have been memorable enough, but we’d mentioned it was my birthday, so they brought me orchids and a chocolate mousse- and all the waiting staff gathered round and sang Happy Birthday to me. You don’t forget that kind of embarrassment in a rush! My first drink as a legal adult was a Pina Colada from there, although I haven’t had anything to drink since then! We had dinner in a Asian-fusion restaurant on the riverside which was delicious. All in all it was a good birthday, although like Christmas very different to how it would have been at Scottish-home.
Now we are beginning to get settled into the routine of the group home again, as much as anything is settled at the moment. Recently we found out that Group Home 1 (where we are currently living) is going to close and all the children from there are going to move to GH2 with us, so we have had lots to do to with organizing things for that move. As well as this, the oldest children are stopping their evening English classes and we are going to teach from 6.30-7.30 each evening an English conversation class.
This week has been hard work, as on top of all that news we have had some problems with one of the children being asked to leave the school. We suspect that she has a learning disability due to her behaviour in class, and she gets very easily upset by the other children. We knew before the headteacher spoke to Phearun that she was having problems, but what the school are most worried about isn’t her misbehaving, or the lack of ways to discipline her effectively, but the fact that she has been biting other children. They are very worried about HIV transmission, so she is currently not able to attend school, which is frustrating for us and we are working hard to try and sort it out for her.
In terms of more good news I am FINALLY not ill anymore- after bronchitis over Christmas, followed by a stomach bug for the duration of Thailand, then a cold- I was beginning to forget how it felt to be well! I’m hoping that it stays this way and I don’t get ill again… at least for a while!
This weekend is Chinese New Year so we are celebrating again with dinner out at a Chinese restaurant this evening and a party with the children tomorrow night. It genuinely feels like we have parties for various things all the time (not that I should be complaining about that!) because we celebrate all the major western and Chinese festivals, as well as the Khmer ones.
So for now, Happy Christmas, Happy (Western) New Year, Happy Birthday (to me!) and Happy Chinese New Year!
